There are lots of mockable, hatable Ted Cruz positions, but this is not one of them. Along with every other horrible thing they did and said to each other during the Republican primaries, Trump publicly and famously went after Cruz’s wife. Cruz has every reason to hate Trump.

Thing the second: Ted Cruz would shank his fellow Republicans to get the best breakfast cruller. Cruz has routinely dicked over his fellow party members to peacock for his base. This is why his fellow Congressional Republicanshatehim.

Thing the third: One of the reasons for the screwing over of his GOP colleagues is that Cruz likes to be seen as the only purist in his party. Remember when Cruz braved a wall of boos at the GOP convention by bravely… Um, neither explicitly endorsing nor condemning Trump? It was a careful move for his 2020 campaign. He likes to be seen by his base as the only guy who stands up, even if he has to make weasel moves to do so.

Given those last three things, Cruz should be fainting with joy over the revelations about Russia interfering with our election on behalf of Trump.

Based on Cruz’s usual priorities — the care, feeding, and promotion of Ted Cruz — he theoretically couldn’t ask for anything better. Leading the charge for an investigation and a special prosecutor would make Cruz look like a maverick patriot, like a more melty-faced John McCain. It would have the added benefits of kneecapping Trump and making Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, and Jason Chaffetz look like the weaseldick collaborators that they so obviously are. Cruz would get to piss people off, smite his enemies, fire up his base of believers, and grab the leadership of the Republican party. If enough rot gets revealed behind the curtain, Cruz could even become a kingmaker and (assuming the party survives, which is only of minimal concern to Cruz) pick who gets elected to replace the Republicans who are forced to resign in disgrace or go to jail.

But Cruz isn’t doing any of that.

Instead of pointing fingers, Cruz is deflecting, calling the Jeff Sessions meetings a “nothingburger.” Cruz has been pointing away from Russian interference in the 2016 election all along.

However, Ted Cruz only helps Ted Cruz, so none of this makes sense. How does pointing away from the Russian interference in the 2016 election instead of charging after the obvious benefits to himself help Ted Cruz? Was Cruz also approached during the 2016 primary? Or before?

Feel like going deeper down the hole?

Republicans gave up the idea of fair elections years ago.

Once it became clear that a) Americans tend to hate GOP policies once they actually get a taste of them and b) the Southern Strategy of playing to white racists is demographically doomed, Republicans went all in on gerrymandering, dark-money super PACs, voter suppression, voter ID laws that target minorities, and vote caging strategies that, again, target minorities.

Ditto for the GOP giving a shit about good-faith governance of our country.

See: The theft of Merrick Garland’s Supreme Court spot, infinite Benghazi hearings, and Mitch McConnell greeting the election of Barack Obama by instructing his party to prevent Obama wins whether they would be good for the country or not.

Much of the GOP leadership has been lovingly tongue-bathing and powdering Putin’s taint for years now.

And Ryan, McConnell, and the most of the rest of the GOP are scrambling to cover for Trump, a man they look down upon and loathe almost as much as Ted Cruz. Why not simply spike him now that they have Pence in place with Ryan as a backup?

To sum up, the ultimate question for Ted Cruz and the GOP is: Exactly how many crooked elections do we have to worry about?